It seems that there is no stopping Ripple Technologies for now, as with each passing day, the cryptocurrency startup is getting more aggressive in its pursuits to establish ties with other international financial firms. Over the past two months, the blockchain startup is inking key collaborations with many companies for instant global payments services either using the XRP tokens or other specialized technologies.

In a fresh new engagement, Ripple has announced its ties with Hong-Kong-based firm LianLian International. LianLian is the latest entrant to the RippleNet which is the company’s latest decentralized global network, comprising of banks and other financial institutions and handles real-time confirmations for financial transactions.

Emi Yoshikawa, Ripple’s director of joint venture partnerships said: “Cross-border payments related to China’s e-commerce market reached $1.07 trillion in 2017. There is a huge opportunity to make these payments quicker and more cost-efficient. With RippleNet, LianLian will now be able to provide merchants and consumers with on-demand payments, which they weren’t able to before. We look forward to connecting other RippleNet members to LianLian.”

Last month in January 2018, the company announced its ties with payments services like MoneyGram, IDT Corporation and Mercury FX where the firm will be testing Ripple’s xRapid solution for instant payments at lower costs. The xRapid solution designed by Ripple is used to create on-demand liquidity for financial transactions.

However, LianLian will be adopting Ripple’s xCurrent solution that offers same-day, cross-border transactions to its customers, over the blockchain. Note that the xCurrent solution, unlike the xRapid, doesn’t use XRP tokens while making transactions. Just a few days back, Ripple announced a similar partnership with Spanish banking giant Banco Santander wherein the latter will also be using Ripple’s xCurrent payments solution. Ripple has announced that it will bring this project to life by the Q1 of 2018.

xCurrent is basically Ripple’s enterprise solution that uses end-to-end tracking in order to settle cross-border payments. With this collaboration, xCurrent will dramatically improve the efficiency of higher volume transactions between consumers and merchants not only in China but also in other markets.

With this news, LianLian becomes the latest member of RippleNet, and now the blockchain startup has over 100 customers which are using its xCurrent solution. CEO of LianLain International, Arthur Zu, in a statement said: “LianLian International is a leader in payout experience both into and out of China, as evidenced by a large number of our merchants and partners. With RippleNet, we will further enhance that experience by offering customers instant, blockchain-powered payments across the 19 currencies that we currently support. We look forward to working with Ripple to power payment flows between China and RippleNet members in new markets.”

It seems that Ripple’s presence in the Asian markets is expanding very fast with the technology now having its footprint in important markets South Korea, Japan, India and Thailand.

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